the very hungry caterpillar

Everyone is always asking me what I actually do at my job. I'm a technician, yes, I work on the pipeline with all the guys. It's not my favorite place to be in this world-but it pays the bills and puts food on the table. Here's just a little preview of a few of the things I have worked on this past year. Due to all of the snow and moisture this year, we had a few areas that we were dealing with landslides. We watch these very closely because too much of a shift could put too much stress on the pipe, causing it to burst or leak. In one area we had to dig up the lines and install strain guages to monitor the land movement. It only ended up being about a week long project, but it's always neat to see the pipe dug up and actually see with your eyes what is in the ground. Makes me have a whole different level of respect for the pipe. The two 36" lines :

On the last day up there , I found this little furry friend. If you know me very well at all . . . you know that this guy was NOT my friend. But it was the biggest and furriest caterpillar I had ever seen. And I was in a way, fascinated by him... just as long as he kept his distance from me!

This was at our most recent engine change out . . . a few weeks ago. We had an emergency engine exchange at Coyote and because of all the construction and equipment going on there, we were unable to get the new engine into the building on the semi. So . . . we had a crane put it into the back of a dump truck and backed it in. Someone was thinking!

You can see the old tubine sitting in the background . . .